


The Customer's Point Of View

by DirkGentlyDG (Furygun81)



Category: Dirk Gently (TV)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furygun81/pseuds/DirkGentlyDG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you've ever thought about hiring Dirk Gently to look at your interesting case, you may well want to think again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Customer's Point Of View

Wandering into Dirk Gently’s office is not something one does lightly. 

Wandering into Dirk Gently’s office is not something one should even think about doing at all.

33a Peckender Street, wedged neatly in between 37 and 42 Peckender Street, radiates an aura. Not a generically bad aura, or anything deadly or foreboding about the place, it simply gives you a disconcerting feel. The very building seems out of place. The windows were rounded, shaped like arches and disproportionately large as they jutted out from the walls high above the front door. The slim building was about two storeys high, and Dirk’s office occupied the very top floor.

The front door was an off-black, much like an off-white fridge you’d find after it had spent a week in somebody’s conservatory, simply inverted. Some previous owner of the offices was clearly a big fan of stickers, as there were various bits of stickers left after the new owners had tried to rip the stickers off. The only thing pristine about the front door was a rather small rectangle occupying the space next to the door handle. It was a shiny brass plaque, and it read in bold, capital letters: **‘DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY.’**

This block of offices belonged not to Dirk Gently alone. In fact, it belonged to Maltravers Estate Agents, who were letting out the offices to various paying (in most cases, anyhow) customers.

The bottom floor office belonged to a model train collector, whose train tracks often occupied the space about half a metre in front of the office door. He spent most of the day inside the office, glaring out at passers-by, customers, other model train collectors, friends, family, Father Christmas and that group of men who hang around outside the local chippy every Saturday, so long as it isn’t rainy.

The first floor office was occupied by a nice little lady who runs simple French lessons with customers who wish to become proficient in another language. Only the last half of that sentence was accurate - the customers wish to become proficient in another language. Although the owner was certainly a lady, she was certainly not nice. Or little. Every Tuesday, the argued conversations between her and the poor customer of the day filled the air until the customer stormed out, muttering business about they were ‘certainly not recommending her to their friends.’

Travelling up the jagged and slanted and almost unquestionably dangerous stairs to the next floor is a fearful journey, one riddled with a chilling expectation and the absolute certainty that what lurk within the office doors was certainly not ordinary.

First of all, you’d notice the quality of the wooden blue door. The paint had been scratched off, with the wood grain straining through the gaps, like prisoners rather zombily begging for parole.

After turning the squeaky door handle and actually entering the office, you would normally be greeted with a secretary who was determined to do anything other than answer the phones. Janice Pearce. Of course, new customers simply assumed there was a reason behind her behaviour and that she was simply like this - moody and unresponsive - on today. Unfortunately not, however. The walls in the little ‘lobby’ area were relatively clear, save for one Duran Duran poster on the wall.

Scrawled across it in a big red felt tip were the words, ‘Take this down please.’  
Beneath that, another hand had scrawled, ‘No.’  
Beneath that again, with the handwriting of the first sentence, were the words, ‘Take it down NOW.’  
Beneath that the second person had written, ‘Won’t!’  
Beneath that - ‘You’re sacked.’  
Beneath that - ‘Good!’

And there the case seemed to have rested.

Within the office itself, the conditions were indescribable. The walls were littered with goodness-knows-what, paperwork lay strewn across the patchy carpet, various miscellaneous objects and coca-cola lids and pizza boxes and eviction notices and 1980s numberplates and toy cars thrived within this uncontrollable chaotic environment. And yet…

It was homely. It fitted Dirk Gently, the holistic detective, perfectly. No one else could possibly to have hoped to make any sense of anything within the office. But Dirk, he knew. He could make sense out of chaos. It was a kind of special sense which only made sense to the one making sense of it - ie Dirk. There were two desks either side of the room, one belonging to Dirk and the other belonging to Richard MacDuff, Dirk’s trusty _assistant_. It was easy to distinguish one from the other because the back of Richard’s office chair had been sawn off, after a rather unfortunate series of events involving the Pentagon and Dirk’s utility knife.

A portion of the wall was blank, left clear, and the green colour of it had been painted over, so the wall now appeared an off-white. The paint bucket that was _still_ on the floor was a clear giveaway as to that. This was where Dirk designed his visual interpretations of the holistic connectedness. The webs of interconnected events surrounding the cases he had been hired to investigate took a physical form upon this very wall. Without this wall, Dirk wouldn’t be the man he is today. It defined him. It made him.

This was as far as the customers got before noticing Dirk’s tremendous tweed and majestic mane before either going through with hiring the holistic detective or turning back around and ‘briskly strolling’ out of the door.


End file.
